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Bitcoin is going to drop to $300-600 within the next year: * There are only a limited number of coins out there so people are going to stop mining for them as

Bitcoin is going to drop to $300-600 within the next year: * There are only a limited number of coins out there so people are going to stop mining for them as he near that limit. You can see that now with fewer people buying ASIC and similar FPGA modules. * The transaction fees are getting be as great as the cost of a pizza transaction * Lost coins - There are millions of wallets out there with people exploring BitCoin that has just been lost. Its a lot easier to lose your wallet hash then your physical wallet. Do I think block-chain will take over? Yes and then it will crash spectacularly. I honestly look for the markets to take off over teh hype and then die death crashing into a universal central system. Look for more slow downs with chat-bots, games, and video services, onion routers piggy backing on the service. Then there purposely bad transactions in DOS terrorism to destroy confidence in issued currency. Eventually this will force the 'new banks' take us back a world centralized bank with sharded nodes that a UN like structure will control.

tuxxy 9y ago
EDIT: I should probably sleep more.
- deepakkarki 9y ago
  OP said drop to, not drop by.
cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
I don't understand why people still do this type of "X will die" predictions. You have nothing to gain by making these predictions, just like how everyone who predicted the fall of the Internet are now laughed upon. Furthermore, even if Bitcoin DOES go down, it's not like you'll be applauded for being an 'oracle' just because you predicted this either. Pretty much everyone who's risk-averse or doesn't understand the technology is saying the same thing. Why not actually learn how the technology works, so that you don't make these shallow snarky remarks that sound exactly the same as the conversation I had with my uber driver last night, and instead maybe yourself could come up with a solution? Regarding all the reasons you pointed out, except for the transaction fee issue, the rest are really non-problems. Just because fewer people buy mining devices you think it will go down to $300? Just because you lost your Bitcoin because of your carelessness, you think Bitcoin will go down to $300? Transaction fees are really the biggest issue right now, and there are tons of different approaches people are working on. Just like the Internet had hard time scaling in the early days I'm sure people will figure it out. One thing I find annoying about mainstream media saying Bitcoin will die is how they think Bitcoin is some fixed thing that's doomed because it won't evolve at all. I expected better from HN audience. Bitcoin is designed to evolve through forks and that's the whole point. People will find various ways to fix all kinds of challenges because financial incentivization is built into the protocol.
- philipwhiuk 9y ago
  > Transaction fees are really the biggest issue right now, and there are tons of different approaches people are working on. Just like the Internet had hard time scaling in the early days I'm sure people will figure it out. "Yes, don't worry we'll just solve this extremely technically challenging problem." That's an article of faith.
  - aeternus 9y ago
    Lightning network seems to be the leading solution. I've used it on the test net and it is fairly impressive.
  - cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
    I never said "Yes don't worry". That's stupid, and exactly what Bitcoin devs are doing right now, which is why the price is going down. My point was that these are extremely challenging problems but not unsolvable. If went back in time and asked anyone whether something like Bitcoin would work, everyone would have thought it was an "impossible" problem to solve. If you're reading HN, I assume you are somewhat technical. If so, it's much more productive to actually sit down to learn what the "extremely challenging" issue really is and see if you could come up with a solution? Bitcoin and cryptocurrency ecosystem is so early that if you mess around and if you're clever enough you will probably see tons of opportunities everywhere. If you can't, then it's either that you didn't understand the tech deeply enough or you're just incapable (which is fine, but most people belong to the former category) Anyway aside from all that, my real point was how it's not wise to make predictions when you don't know how the technology actually works really well, which is what everyone from Jamie Dimon and my uber driver is doing. A lot of these people are intelligent in their own ways but they're just too lazy to actually study how it works but just like to babble on because that gives them the satisfaction of feeling like a smart person.
- spyder 9y ago
  Hah, nice comment recycling :) ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16028809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16028809 )
csense 9y ago
> There are only a limited number of coins out there so people are going to stop mining for them as he near that limit. You can see that now with fewer people buying ASIC and similar FPGA modules. This is true, but the effect should tend to push the price up, not down. The new coins paid to miners are essentially a "tax" on everyone else. > The transaction fees are getting be as great as the cost of a pizza transaction If fees are high, it means demand for transactions is high as well. High fees are evidence that people want to use Bitcoin. > Lost coins - There are millions of wallets out there with people exploring BitCoin that has just been lost. I don't know about "millions," but it certainly happens. When coins are lost, it increases the scarcity of Bitcoin, which would tend to make the price go up.
jgalt212 9y ago
> There are only a limited number of coins out there Very true for BTC, but there an unlimited number of new cryptocurrencies (either competitors to BTC or ICOs). This is the inflation risk.
- wampwamp 9y ago
  The risk/rate of inflation in cryptos is determined by the market's appetite for the fork/alt. Along with the even distribution of inflation (in the case of forks) vs the traditional "trickled-down" inflation makes it very different in practice.
aeternus 9y ago
Many of your points contradict each other. * Transaction fees go to the miners so high transaction fees mean more miners. There have been a few blocks now where the total transaction fees are larger than the built-in block reward. * High transaction fees are an issue but they are also directly tied to price & usage. If bitcoin price/usage drops then transaction fees will drop. High transaction fees also make spamming useless/small transactions as part of a DOS quite expensive. * Lost coins increase the price due to decreased supply.

tuxxy 9y ago

EDIT: I should probably sleep more.

deepakkarki 9y ago
OP said drop to, not drop by.

cocktailpeanuts 9y ago

I don't understand why people still do this type of "X will die" predictions. You have nothing to gain by making these predictions, just like how everyone who predicted the fall of the Internet are now laughed upon. Furthermore, even if Bitcoin DOES go down, it's not like you'll be applauded for being an 'oracle' just because you predicted this either. Pretty much everyone who's risk-averse or doesn't understand the technology is saying the same thing. Why not actually learn how the technology works, so that you don't make these shallow snarky remarks that sound exactly the same as the conversation I had with my uber driver last night, and instead maybe yourself could come up with a solution? Regarding all the reasons you pointed out, except for the transaction fee issue, the rest are really non-problems. Just because fewer people buy mining devices you think it will go down to $300? Just because you lost your Bitcoin because of your carelessness, you think Bitcoin will go down to $300? Transaction fees are really the biggest issue right now, and there are tons of different approaches people are working on. Just like the Internet had hard time scaling in the early days I'm sure people will figure it out. One thing I find annoying about mainstream media saying Bitcoin will die is how they think Bitcoin is some fixed thing that's doomed because it won't evolve at all. I expected better from HN audience. Bitcoin is designed to evolve through forks and that's the whole point. People will find various ways to fix all kinds of challenges because financial incentivization is built into the protocol.

philipwhiuk 9y ago
> Transaction fees are really the biggest issue right now, and there are tons of different approaches people are working on. Just like the Internet had hard time scaling in the early days I'm sure people will figure it out. "Yes, don't worry we'll just solve this extremely technically challenging problem." That's an article of faith.
- aeternus 9y ago
  Lightning network seems to be the leading solution. I've used it on the test net and it is fairly impressive.
- cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
  I never said "Yes don't worry". That's stupid, and exactly what Bitcoin devs are doing right now, which is why the price is going down. My point was that these are extremely challenging problems but not unsolvable. If went back in time and asked anyone whether something like Bitcoin would work, everyone would have thought it was an "impossible" problem to solve. If you're reading HN, I assume you are somewhat technical. If so, it's much more productive to actually sit down to learn what the "extremely challenging" issue really is and see if you could come up with a solution? Bitcoin and cryptocurrency ecosystem is so early that if you mess around and if you're clever enough you will probably see tons of opportunities everywhere. If you can't, then it's either that you didn't understand the tech deeply enough or you're just incapable (which is fine, but most people belong to the former category) Anyway aside from all that, my real point was how it's not wise to make predictions when you don't know how the technology actually works really well, which is what everyone from Jamie Dimon and my uber driver is doing. A lot of these people are intelligent in their own ways but they're just too lazy to actually study how it works but just like to babble on because that gives them the satisfaction of feeling like a smart person.
spyder 9y ago
Hah, nice comment recycling :) ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16028809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16028809 )

csense 9y ago

> There are only a limited number of coins out there so people are going to stop mining for them as he near that limit. You can see that now with fewer people buying ASIC and similar FPGA modules. This is true, but the effect should tend to push the price up, not down. The new coins paid to miners are essentially a "tax" on everyone else. > The transaction fees are getting be as great as the cost of a pizza transaction If fees are high, it means demand for transactions is high as well. High fees are evidence that people want to use Bitcoin. > Lost coins - There are millions of wallets out there with people exploring BitCoin that has just been lost. I don't know about "millions," but it certainly happens. When coins are lost, it increases the scarcity of Bitcoin, which would tend to make the price go up.

jgalt212 9y ago

> There are only a limited number of coins out there Very true for BTC, but there an unlimited number of new cryptocurrencies (either competitors to BTC or ICOs). This is the inflation risk.

wampwamp 9y ago
The risk/rate of inflation in cryptos is determined by the market's appetite for the fork/alt. Along with the even distribution of inflation (in the case of forks) vs the traditional "trickled-down" inflation makes it very different in practice.

aeternus 9y ago

Many of your points contradict each other. * Transaction fees go to the miners so high transaction fees mean more miners. There have been a few blocks now where the total transaction fees are larger than the built-in block reward. * High transaction fees are an issue but they are also directly tied to price & usage. If bitcoin price/usage drops then transaction fees will drop. High transaction fees also make spamming useless/small transactions as part of a DOS quite expensive. * Lost coins increase the price due to decreased supply.